Timo, once upon a time, I had links to your Hobbyist's Guide, but I know not where they went. I tried clicking on that Google Docs link you had a few entries above, but I don't have a Google account. Do you have them online in some other sort of format accessible to me? I'd like to see the newer stuff you've come up with; the only other thing I have are some printouts in my office from way back in 2012, I think.
Mmm. It's the same thing the Axanar team did on their ships: the smaller size fits the rest of Trek better. Not that Starfleet couldn't have bigger ships than Kirk's TOS one, at any timepoint - but it was just too attractive an opportunity to pass when the Kelvin sported the registry of a Saladin class ship that looked more or less exactly the part and could well take a dorsal pod and an "O prefix", TAS style. There are surprisingly few scale-establishing things about the Kelvin in the end; if anything, the bridge suggests the Guide/Axanar size if taken to occupy the center of the superstructure rather than the forward edge, and there are docking ports that would be immense on the larger interpretation of the ship. Even the ships seen later on in the movie could be of the smaller scale, as we never get a good comparison with the hero ship, one devoid of perspective issues. (The hero ship meets with two separate wrecks of giant saucers, both labeled Mayflower, in the debris field above Vulcan, but none of the cadet-crewed ships was named Mayflower anyway, so this double-saucered giant could be some sort of a Deneb caliber battleship that responded a bit before he cadets did!) Not only does the Kelvin look like a Saladin, but the big twin-secondary-huller is a dead ringer for the Proxima battleship of RPG/computer game fame, again at the smaller scale. And it sort of follows then that the nacelles-down ship would then be related to the Burke of the RPGs. Now, this is still intended to be how the ships "really" look in the "altered timeline", as the ships don't suddenly change size just because Nero time-travels. The one thing casting a bit of doubt on that is in ST:ID where we get a scale-establishing shot of the big space station above Earth, that is, a shot with the hero ship docked. But I'm turning a blind eye on that. The new hero ship of course is in the size range of the E-D, and has every right to be, as the "regular" universe introduces large command ships (say, the Lexington) around that time as well. And the Vengeance then is almost as big as the Duaneverse Deneb... Timo Saloniemi
@Timo I'm not convinced that the scene showing Kelvin's shuttlebay can even remotely work in the small scale you suggest, and then of course there's the reference to 800 people. But if I were to shove Kelvin to prime universe I'd definitely use the smaller scale as well. As for prime universe having huge ships, in canon it really doesn't. Duane's Inaieu is IMHO silly. Excelsior was called a big ship suggesting that it was unprecedentedly large.
Funnily enough, there's something of a contradiction there already: 800 people couldn't really fit inside that armada of twenty-something shuttles, not unless many of them were of a much larger type than shown. So I simply assume that the tired and probably also already drunk-as-skunk Pike said "a hundred" rather than "eight hundred". Apart from that, my Kelvin just has a smaller shuttlebay... The second half of the 23rd century is when the Excelsior is introduced. Even if she's the first big one in that one timeline, others quickly follow; the parallel timeline is entitled to its large new flagship (which in the Guide, dealing with the primary timeline only, is more or less exactly matched by the Lexington class of the Klingon Academy game fame). As for huge in canon, it's anybody's guess. Apart from the Great Experiment, nobody ever claims that any specific ship would be the biggest one around. Not even the Vengeance gets points for size specifically! Timo Saloniemi
Please disregard my earlier request; one of my adult daughters helped set up a Google account for me ("Jeez, you're sooooo lame, Pops!" "Yeah, yeah, yeah, shaddup, I have Trek stuff to read now...and about that gift of life? You're welcome.") so I've been enjoying the Hobbyist's Guide for a few hours now.
Welcome to the Collective! With FASA done and as many LUG and SFB references as possible worked in, this more or less is "it" for now. The Guide doesn't extend to Typhon Pact or STO chronologically, because that would call for me to read another two shelf-meters of novels and spend more than the current 24 hours per day online. But I'm looking forward to the new TV series so that I can again defend the "it's a work in progress" laziness in finishing the work. (That, and the possible new pre-2233 designs from future movies.) I wonder... Any nice designs out there that I simply missed? Starfleet Museum is a complete parallel universe I don't want to mess with too much, although Archer, Capella and Pyotr Velikiy came from there via the novels. Places like DeviantArt are full of fantastic new designs, but using those would merely be stealing somebody else's ideas wholesale, while this embedding of ideas into canon, RPG or novel matrices can be claimed to be at least a little bit creative in its own right. Timo Saloniemi
Darn, I was hoping for some entries from the "current" chronology of Trek novels, like the Vesta, Merian, and Luna-classes. There is enough information readily available online to add such ships, should you change your mind. And I'd be delighted to assist.
Hey TIMO--didn't Mandell's son do a guide to trekdom--with a lot of ships. He showed a C-57 D as an early fed ship and Professor Parsfoot from Space Command as an early scientist--I think he came out with a pre-transporter called a materializer or something... Any ideas?
I think I posted a link to his guide on the first page of this thread. The guide is more or less in the format of good old Spaceflight Chronology, with lots and lots of crossover stuff. I highly recommend it all! My Guide has a couple of new entries now, on the Merian class, on two Dan Uyeno designs from the 2012 calendar under the names Ural and Apollo, and new stuff (mostly inspired by Last Unicorn Games manuals) on Niagara, Andromeda and Freedom. The Titan is still under construction (almost literally, as the Guide supposedly describes the year 2379, not entering the slipstream era, Typhon Pact and that stuff). Timo Saloniemi
^ Thanks for the update! (Argh... now I have to try to figure out what my Google password was! ) Unfortunately that link appears to be dead. However, it looks like those can be found here now: http://bellerophon-modeler.blogspot.ca/p/federation-spaceflight-chronology.html
Here is one for Ripley. Hate to hear the Cyberpunk kids who rag on the chunky punchcard-type sound of TOS computers? Heh--they're in for a shock: http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/molecular-mechanical-computer-design.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/molecular-mechanical-computing-design.html I love it. Now we know the sound of trek computers chugging away wasn't primitive--but predictive after all. "Click click--working!"
Not gonna lie, I'm absolutely tickled pink to see some of my line drawings in these guides! Thanks for considering them worthy of inclusion, Timo!
Whee, Wee, thanks for the retroactive permission! (Embarrassed, he asks: Are you Neale Davidson?) Timo Saloniemi
Haha, nope. I did the blue line side view art that you used, including the Sydney, Texas, Freedom, Norway and several others. Pleased they were considered good enough to be utilized in these wonderful guides.
Oh, yeah, those - the ones I stole from the Starfleet Registry compilation page... I just love the exact right amount of detail that has gone into those drawings, making these look like real objects of great scale being portrayed as simply as possible. Thank you for creating this art! With canon ships, I can often also include "real" shots; with FASA designs, there's no way any of the original art would suffice, and my preferred creative reinterpretation never seems to be the one chosen by fan artists... Timo Saloniemi
Man, I remember reading through these years ago; I'm glad to have lucked into seeing this thread! The amount of work and detail in these is amazing. I do have one question, though I feel like it's probably a silly one. I've only just started re-reading them from the start so maybe it's explained in an appendix later on, but what do the single-letter abbreviations for the three source categories mean? I'm guessing they're Date, Name, and History?
Oh, sorry - that's Design, Name and History. The first basically tells where something at least vaguely looking like the entry ship can be spotted (at least if you have a keen eye or access to fan publications long out of print). The second is where I got the class name and possibly some subclass names from; often a nameless design and a designless name were found floating and forcibly mated. And the last clarifies whether there exists some source that at the very least mentions when the class was launched, and possibly provides part of the story, too. There's an entry on the Luna class there now, missing all the good stuff as the Guide terminates at AD 2379. The Typhon carrier from the Invasion game is added, too. Timo Saloniemi
First let me say Timo that I love the time and love you have put in your work. I have a question about a work that is semi related to yours, and I know that it is no longer being updated. Does anyone have a full copy on the Federation Spaceflight Chronology? I had a full copy, including the Klingon and Romulan files on a hard drive that dies and I have been looking for a few years for a replacement. Could anyone help? And again Timo you have given me many nights or reading enjoyment!
Just as a PS I know that Bellerophon has them at his website, but you can't download them. I guess the best option is to use a web stripping tool and download them that way?